Irish-born cookery writer Trish Deseine sells her books in France like hot cakes.
Now, she’s written her first cookbook in English, for a British audience. The title “Nobody Does it Better” refers to French women in the kitchen. Each chapter aims to show what makes the French home cook so skilled: shops wisely, knows her classics, steals from chefs, and rises to the occasion.
When Deseine first came to France she encountered a “lost generation” of women who had never learned to cook after their mothers cast off their aprons in the great rebellion of May 1968. “Now food has become so fashionable as a means of self-expression and there are so many sources of inspiration, such as cookery classes and food blogs,” she says.
This more open-minded approach to food might explain how an Irishwoman was able to become a French culinary icon.
“It wasn’t calculated. I just happened to be there at the right time, and being Anglo-Saxon, as the French say, I wasn’t weighed down with too much knowledge or tradition. I tried a lot of stuff and I think that gave people confidence.“
